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Alchemy
Alchemy is the medieval forerunner of chemistry, based on the supposed transformation of matter. Much of the subject stems from the writings of Paracelsus and Hermes Trismegistus. Transmutation This is the process of changing one element or material into another. This is through the creation of the Prima Materia. This in turn can create the Philosopher's Stone, a rare substance most sought by the Alchemists. By power it can change any substance, most often metal into silver or gold. It is the original matter, and thus, it has the energy of God himself. The stone, according to legend, can cure diseases, and life it does prolong to endure a state of immortality. To transmute, seven processes are required to be enacted upon a piece of pure matter as to reduce it to its primal state. #''Calcination'': Reducing a substance to ashes. Purification by fire. #''Dissolution'': Dissolving ash into a liquid. Purification by water. #''Separation'': Filtering and separating the products of dissolution. Purification by air. #''Conjunction'': Recombining into a new substance. Purification by earth. #''Fermentation'': Breaking down the substance by decomposition. #''Distillation'': Boiling and condensing. Produces a more refined substance, as in making wine or spirits. #''Coagulation'': Substance is transmuted into a crystalline, or solid state. Homunculus A homunculus is an artificial man. One such method of creating a homunulus is recorded in 1537 work De natura rerum by the alchemist Paracelsus: "That the sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed cucurbit for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a horse's womb, or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself, and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a man, but transparent, without a body. If, after this, it be fed wisely with the Arcanum of human blood, and be nourished for up to forty weeks, and be kept in the even heat of the horse's womb, a living human child grows therefrom, with all its members like another child, which is born of a woman, but much smaller." Another type of Homunculus is the Golem, a homunculus of jewish folklore. To craft and conjure the Golem, clay of a holy nature, either from the River Jordan or blessed by a Rabbi, is to be taken and used to mold a figure in the image of a man. Just as God breathed life into Adam, the maker shall put life into a Golem through a scroll that is to be placed within the husk’s mouth. Upon the scroll shall be written the Shem HaMephorash, the 72 lettered secret name of God in Hebrew (הנסה אלהים לבוא לקחת לו גוי במסת באתת ובמופתים ובמלחמה וביד חזקה ובזרוע נטויה ובמוראים). Then, upon the figure’s forehead, the word Truth (אמת) is to be written. A Hebrew prayer is to be said, and to life the Golem shall manifest. To destroy the Golem, the word Death (מָוֶת) is to be written over Truth, and the scroll is to be burned.